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Weird Gig This Past Weekend - Youngest Crowd Ever

jaywa

jaywa

May 5, 2008
7,702
283
Iowa City, IA
#1
So my covers/originals band headlined a small-town country music festival this past Saturday. Typical set-up: city park, a couple of flatbed trailers as the stage, generator, etc. We did this same event last year as an opening act and got rave reviews so were invited back this year as the main event.

It was close to 10:00 before we went on and by 11 when we were really hitting our stride, the entire front of the stage was dominated by kids and I don't mean teenagers, I mean like, 8 to 12 year olds. One kid was wearing a black cowboy hat, standing right in front of our singer and singing the words to every song we played. Gets to 11:30, even MORE kids of that age in front of the stage and I'm thinking, "it's way past bedtime... where are all these kids' parents?"

Before and after the gig wound up signing one kid's arm, another kid's 4-H trophy and some kid's cellphone. There were adults there but they were sitting a ways back from the stage, listening but not really into it.

It really didn't change our song selection any, but our front man did have to keep his comments a little "cleaner" than usual and cut back on the drinking references. We did have some fun with it though... playing "Red Solo Cup" but changing lyrics to "Red Sippy Cup". Not sure anyone got it but things were surreal enough at that point we really didn't care.

Keep in mind just the night before we had played a resort bar that was packed wall to wall with 20- and 30-something "beautiful people" who were all down to party. Which is a lot closer to our usual demographic. So it was just kind of a weird contrast.

Anyone else had a similar experience?
 
#2
One of my cover bands opened for a magician (a bad magician) at a JDRF charity event. Parents mostly ignored us, lol, but 20 or so wee ones - and I mean wee, like between 3 and 7 - shakin' booties on the grass. No complaints from me, was cute! And they were good and ready for that magician!
 
#3
This is the third small-town outdoor event we've played this month and at all of them the turnouts have been low and people just haven't seemed to engage like they did at similar events we played last year.

Frankly I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this entire month has been blistering hot up here and the majority of the region is in a moderate to severe drought. When you've got as many local folks who depend on agriculture for a living as we do, that's serious business. I really think the weather has sapped a lot of the "party spirit" of folks up in these parts. For the kids, OTOH (and the "beautiful people" hangin at the resorts) that's not such a big deal.

We've got another small-town street dance on the books for this coming weekend. By then we're supposed to have gotten some rain and it's supposed to cool down some so maybe it will be a better vibe if that happens.
 
#4
10+yrs ago my wannabe-kindasorta-RHCP/Primus band played an open mic-type thing at a.local.music store. We were in our thirties; the older members of the crowd were mid-teenage. A confused-looking girl told us that since we spelled the bandname- Phat Side Down- w/a *P* she thought we were young. We asked how old she thought we were- she said *twenty* like that's old...
 
#8
logicman69 said:
With all the cuts being made to take Arts and Music out of the schools, it should be encouraging to see so many kids getting into live music. Arround my area, live music lives in bars, no one under 21 admitted. So to be able to entertain a group of kids is a treat.
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Yeah on that level it was pretty cool. To have kids that age give us two hours of their attention without being plugged into their iPods or constantly texting or whatever... I figure we must have been doing something right, even if it wasn't the audience we had planned on. And we got called back for an encore (by the kids and the adults)... so that felt good.
 
#11
We used to get that all the time when we played outdoor/ small town festivals. There is not much to do for family outdoor entertainment around here (NW Ohio area) and the parents let their kids run crazy on the dance floor while the parents sit in the back and drink beer. It is cute to see all the little ones go NUTS! Our singer was uncomfortable with all the attention from the 8-10 year old girls :)

But the hard part is changing lyrics on the fly to a more PG format (think Buckcherry tunes)
 
#13
paulybass said:
the parents let their kids run crazy on the dance floor while the parents sit in the back and drink beer. It is cute to see all the little ones go NUTS!
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That's exactly what was happening at our gig last weekend. I've also seen it happen on more than a few wedding dance gigs (at least early in the night).

But the hard part is changing lyrics on the fly to a more PG format (think Buckcherry tunes)
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Yeah... in song content and crowd banter our band rolls more toward alcohol than sex (our BL/singer really likes beer)... and we run a pretty clean show to start with. So it's not hard for us to adapt when the crowds skew towards families. We just cut the "Rodeo Song" and we're pretty much good to go. :D
 

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